Gallery

Before Democracy

1 July 2016

Images of a country under the junta

One of the biggest problems faced by the Rohingya in Bangladesh is access to clean water. Water borne parasites and malnutrition are rife and the threat of outbreaks of disease ever present. Here the refugees collect dirty water outside the camp. Teknaf, Bangladesh, March 2007.

Pa An, Karen state 1998. Teashops are found all over Burma. Traditionally they are meeting places where many discussions and debates take place. The positioning of the signboard in this photograph may be accidental, but the 1988 uprising began after an incident at a teashop in Rangoon.

A handcuffed man is led away by police and an intelligence officer, U Wi Za Ya road, Rangoon, March 2005.

Paper rounds in Rangoon. Burma's media is heavily censored by the Press Registration and Scrutiny Department under the junta. Burma, 1996.

Road widening by the junta in Burma to make way to the new market in Moulmein. The front of the houses were destroyed by the junta and the owners given no compensation. Moulmein, Mon State, Burma, 1996.

Mandalay, 1996. A boy salvages brick from destroyed houses from a forced relocation. Residents of the area were given two weeks to move to an area outside the city. Thousands of people are forced by the army to vacate their homes with little or no compensation to make way for military or commercial ventures, including tourist sites. On this site, a large shopping centre was built.

Internally displaced persons in the Je Gau refugee camp, Kachin State, Burma. Home to 2000 refugees. Since June 2011, more than 70,000 have been displaced by a resumption of hostilities between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army.

Rohingya man at Jama mosque in Sittwe, Arakan State.

Jama Mosque, Sittwe, Arakan State 2006

Refugees in Mae La camp in Thailand let off steam during the World Cup in 2006. There are more than 140,000 refugees on the Thai Burma border. Thailand, 2006.

A soldier of the Shan State Army stands guard on the frontline. Behind him is a hill top outpost belonging to the United Wa State Army allies of the Burmese military and Burma's largest drug cartel. The Shan have been fighting for an independent state for decades. December 2005.

The unelected in Burma's new parliament. Military commanders take their positions in the new parliament building. The Pyithu Hluttaw, or the lower house of Burma's parliament, was dominated by former soldiers, their positions guaranteed under a constitution which was ratified after a fraudulent referendum in 2008.

The generals of Burma's military regime on Armed Forces Day. In the centre is Lt. Gen. Aung Htwe, commander of the Bureau of Special Operations in Karenni and Shan States, where his soldiers raped and killed villagers. Nay Pyi Daw, 27 March 2007.

Flanked by her body guards, Aung San Suu Kyi addresses her supporters at the gate of her home on University Avenue. The following year, these speeches were prohibited altogether and many youth members of the National League for Democracy fled to neighbouring Thailand, fearful of arrest. Rangoon.

Jayang refugee camp Kachin State. Some of the 70,000 refugees who fled the fighting when a 17-year-old-ceasefire broke down between the Kachin Independence Army and the Burmese army in June 2011. Kachin State, January 2012.